Helena's Reviews > Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union

Don't feel qualified to give a real rating of this book because it was my first introduction to the historical subject matter. This 'review' is therefore just a collection of my main takeaways/thoughts.

Why did the ussr collapse?
1. Large black market ‘second economy’ (made up a relevant percentage of economic activity) that was obviously not taxed but also caused discontent and brought about a sort of petty-bourgeoisie class (included non-illegal things such as repairs etc, and illegal things such as subletting apartments privately etc. (made up 20% of all housing at some point?!), drug trades etc.
2. Some lack of worker productivity? Drunkenness and lack of ambition etc… not sure how relevant this really is…
3. On that point, too much wage equalization between ordinary and skilled labor (e.g. professions like doctors not being paid enough, causing lack of ambition among people)
4. Deaths of many communists in WW2.
5. Also large-scale theft in the workplace (from ordinary workers, to sell or use on the black market) and corruption of cadres (local level)
6. Emphasis on hard vs soft industry at the wrong times
7. Most politburo members not ‘aging out’ and instead staying in power even while elderly
8. Bad agricultural policy. E.g. focusing on using ‘virgin lands’ instead of maximizing productivity on existing farmland
9. Just bad policy after Krushchev onwards. Liberalization, free market reforms, not enough crackdowns on black market crime rings, etc. After Stalin and after most proper marxists died in WW2, the liberals started to come out of the woodworks. Not solely Gorbachev’s fault or something because he was allowed to come into power and all the revisionists before him were too
10. External interference from US - e.g. US conspiring with OPEC to drive down oil prices astronomically which benefitted the US and greatly harmed the USSR (who were reliant on oil exports to Europe)
11. Note: yes of course the US is also at fault but they are the manifestation of capitalism and imperialism in this world and therefore act accordingly, dedicated by their material conditions. The Soviet leadership knew this and didn’t combat it. The fall of the USSR is most due to faults of leadership (revisionism)

Criticisms: maybe the book places a little too much emphasis on reformists within the party (great-man-theory-esque), not always fully convincing. Could’ve done with a little more elaboration on the crises that the USSR faced in its final years (their economic realities for the population etc). This was somewhat glossed over - the ‘crises’ and the miner’s strikers were mentioned frequently but not elaborated on.